He wasn’t a man who was easily frightened.
As a forest in the 80’s, Hristo had seen all sorts of things – poachers with rifles, wild boar, who shot out from under the bushes, snakes that entangled around the boots, drunken hunters asleep with the rifle in their lap. But this here was not an animal, it was not a weapon, it was not just garbage.
The light from the flashlight had caught the edge of a small metal box, rusty, but still whole, tucked deep into the furnace niche. It didn’t look like a can box, not a toolbox. It was flat, with a fastener in the middle – like the old document boxes, which were sometimes visible in the offices.
Hristo took air again, stretched out his hand, this time more consciously, felt the cold metal, felt it under his fingers, pulled gently out. The box came out, her weight was strange – she was not weighing in kilograms, but on what she carried in herself.
He sat on the stone in front of the furnace.
He put the box on his knees, elbows, stared at it. The forest around was the same as it was in the morning – fog, dry leaves, a distant scream of a raven. But inside it, some thumping had accelerated.
In those times, any “thing” in the forest that is not a tree, animal, or instrument could have meant a problem. A box like this could have been from a poacher hiding evidence of illegal logging, it could have been from someone hiding a commodity, it could have been something left by people who didn’t want to be sought.
It could have been just forgotten by someone.
But why in a furnace? Why so deep?
“If I give it to the militia, they will come, they will ask me, they will dig,” he went through his head. “If I open it myself, I’ll know something I probably shouldn’t know.”
As someone who has been between the forest and the state all his life, Hristo knew that there are things that it is better not to fall into the hands of the services. Yet he was a forest inspector, a position that suggests you report everything.
He snapped the fastener.
There was no money splashing inside, no gold coins, no revolver. He was prepared for one, and perhaps for something scarier. Instead, he saw paper.
Photos – yellowed, some slightly sticking to each other, others fresher. Below them – a few leaves, folded, tight in two, with handwriting, which at first sight was female. Not the male, twisted, who Hristo was used to seeing on the forest reports.
He took the top picture.
